New here--and I have a crossover project idea

Subject: New here--and I have a crossover project idea Wed May 30, 2012 2:48 pm

Note: I'm posting this here because I don't know where else to put it. If it should be in a different part of the forum, I apologize.

I wanted to get on here and say that I have a webcomic crossover project I'm trying to get together for next year--inspired by the Crossover Wars (I'd link it, but I just registered today). However, I don't want to limit myself to just the webcomics that are out there at the moment. After all, the Crossover Wars began new comics and even had a Forum Wars front where people would role-play in a forum and the pages would be drawn later.

Considering this, I would definitely want to see who would want to be involved in this. Some of you have webcomics, which is great, but I'm sure others would love to do the role-playing angle, for closer interaction with people and also for those who may not be so confident in their artistic abilities to still be involved (though for the project, I would be fine with any varying levels of artistic competency--I'm putting my own comic in it and I suck at drawing).

The story: a Kirby-esque villain named Shai'tan has set out to conquer a myriad universes. He has a bevvy of minions who answer to him, many of which are from universes he has already conquered. Heroes begin finding out about the invading forces and start to rally together to stop him. However, there will be two forces of heroes: one with a leader of pure motives and another whose leader is corrupt.

With this project, I would want to collect the disparate pages into a print version, with the proceeds going to the Hero Initiative, a charity that helps comic creators in need. Because of this, I would not want any characters you aren't allowed to use or any pornographic content (the former shouldn't be a problem, and the latter is specifically because IndyPlanet doesn't allow it, otherwise I wouldn't want to give that restriction to people).

If people are interested, I will say that I'm not sure how often I'll visit this forum, since I do have a lot of places I already go to (though if there is any role-playing for the crossover in the forum, I will visit regularly, possibly also contributing as it's happening). Therefore, you should e-mail me at karamesser at hotmail dot com (I hate spelling that stuff out, but it wouldn't let me send this otherwise).

Love the idea, and I would be happy to participate personally. However, if this is going to work, I know from experience, it's going to take an active leader to encourage people and help coordinate their efforts. This isn't the kind of thing that just falls into place. Are you willing to be that leader/coordinator? A few suggestions:

1. Create a special website devoted to this crossover, and all the specifics of the plan. You will need a separate site to get people excited about the project, show them that there really is movement on it, and clearly lay out the submission guidelines for the project.

2. I would suggest that one of your submission guidelines is to have people do their pages in standard comic format, at 300 dpi. A lot of webcomics are done as strips, or done on a 16:9 TV ratio to fill laptop screens and on smart phone screens. If you want to collect these pages and publish them, you can't have a ton of different formats, and to make them look nice when published, they need to be 300dpi, rather than the internet standard of 72dpi.

3. I'd suggest promoting Jenny Everywhere, a girl who lives in every universe simultaneously, as a major protagonist. Also, give us more detail on Shai'tan...maybe create a profile of him on PDSH wiki with a clear open source license, so there is some common thread about how he is portrayed...as it stands, you may end up with a Shai'tan like Galactus in one universe, like Darksied in another, like Dr. Doom in another, like The Mandarin in another, and like Gargamel in another.

Those are good suggestions. I've actually started a Wikia page before reading this post, so I was already going the separate website route. And I chose to do the webpage as a wiki so that the creators can have better access to put in their own personal information than the Crossover Wars has (which is a privately hosted situation). Plus, I'm no good at website design, so it's easier for me that way.

I do need to put a good bio of Shai'tan up somewhere, too. Currently, a big aspect about him is that I have no visual design yet--but I'll work on that. I also understand about page resolutions and definitely hope to get people on the same page. So far everyone involved actually does do their stuff in the proper format, but you never know.

But one of the things that can happen with planning the crossover is that one can see how characterizations will go. I have some villains I want to run with, and every one of them (even Shai'tan) is open to people's suggestions. Currently, his set personality traits are that he's bombastic yet honorable. He is heavily inspired by Darkseid, so he's a man who truly believes himself superior, but his word is his bond. He will challenge anyone one-on-one, and accept any such fight, and abide by the rules of fair combat until his opponent breaks those rules, and then he will consider such an opponent no longer worthy of life. His minions serve out of respect or fear, depending on who they are, and nobody would want to rebel against him for fear of retaliation.

Also, I would love Jenny to be involved. However, I would assume another writer would be better to tackle that task. In the Crossover Wars, she was part of a side-story, in part because the main protagonist (Scale) was already far too similar to her. But the central protagonist of this crossover hasn't been determined yet. I feel that none of my characters would fit that role (despite one being tied to Shai'tan in similar aspects of their powers--I want to establish early on that she will never get to his level) but that's part of the fun of a crossover--I created the villain, and somebody else can supply the hero(ine).

I am planning on using public domain characters, though. In the introductory story (a prologue of sorts), I'm using Madame Fatal (and will use her if any role-playing happens on this board) and I'm planning on starting a comic that brings together some heroes that only appeared in one story each back in the day: Fox Features' Wonder Man (though I'll rename him), Amazona, Black Panther (also to be renamed), the first Jaguar Man, Electric Ray, Marksman, and TNT. I also want to do a comic that would be analogous to the DC heroes with Lash Lightning (Superman), Cat Man (Batman) and Diana the Huntress (Wonder Woman) as also my way to try to show how I think DC could have given their characters a sendoff before the reboot (as opposed to Flashpoint--I really hate the reboot, and especially how they threw it together), but said comic may not happen, because I already have my hand in three different comics for this (Karabear Comics Unlimited, Trans Dimensional Trans Superheroes and Wonder Team) and therefore don't think I could draw that, too (besides, I really am not a good artist, and such a story would deserve better than me).

Of course, what this project can do for people, as well, is inspire them in their own comic endeavors. People could get involved to kickstart or revive their own projects (I would love if it would revive Outworlder, for instance). Not to mention, it would make more people aware of the wealth of public domain and open source characters out there (well, and the copyrighted ones--every character deserves love), not to mention that superheroes do have a place on the web, despite what many critics say.

But even writing this is helping me think about another part of the crossover: I contacted Heroic Publishing and they have been willing to let me use one of their characters (I'm still not clear how much they would be involved in this), and they suggested either Liberty Girl or Sensational G Girl. I've been trying to find out about G Girl, but I realize I should just go with Liberty Girl. After all, she's an established character of theirs (while G Girl's title has yet to premiere) and her adventures take place during World War II (at least on the web--I don't know about print). This would make her a great character to interact with the public domain characters.

Hmm. It's an interesting idea--and giving money to the Hero Initiative is always a welcome move, of course. I'd be more than willing to write the Jenny Everywhere part if you can find a good artist for it. I've written anumberofstories with Jenny Everywhere before on ficly and elsewhere. I'm curious if you have any creators lined up already; I know people on other fora who would probably be interested in this.

Also, I've enjoyed a number of Heroic Publishing's comics over the years, though some of them got pretty skeevy. I wouldn't use Liberty Girl if I were you, as she's too similar to a ton of PD Golden Age heroines. It would be better to use a character who filled a niche you didn't already have. If you're looking for someone to lead the more morally-ambiguous faction of heroes, the Black Enchantress would make a lot of sense. She's the daughter of her world's greatest magical hero, Doctor Arcane, and his nemesis, the extradimensional sorceress Ch'andarra. She's cunning, mischevious, and manipulative. She sees herself as a villain, but at the same time she's working with the heroes to keep other villains from conquering the world before she can, as well as looking out for her family.

(There are a bunch of links in there, I wish they were easier to read.)

Well, sadly, I've already gone with Wikia. The page building process may be slow-going, but I don't want to move the wiki, in part because another contributor has already been updating some information, too, and likely wouldn't like that effort to go to waste with a move.

A Jenny Everywhere story would be great. I could ask if anybody wants to draw it, but I would think your best bet might be to do it yourself. The Crossover Wars (yay! I can link now) had artists of varying abilities, from the good (Ti-Phil, Caitlin Woods, Reinder Djakis, Fesworks, etc.) to the... less than stellar (KAM, N.Organ, Tim Volpe, etc.), but artistic shortcomings only wery rarely got in the way of storytelling. I'm by no means a good artist, but I'm still putting myself up for three comics that will be central to the crossover (and likely drawing the results of some forum interactions). Click here to see what I mean about the art (and/or read my comic--I always could do with more readers).

But I'll take into consideration what you said about Heroic. Liberty Girl does feel very much like a lot of Golden Age characters, and I recently read the Kickstarter preview for G-Girl. Holy crap is her costume risque. Still, I'm a sucker for transgender characters. Also, I should probably pick a character I can be familiar with, due to my doubt that Heroic will be able to spare a writer and artist to draw a comic specifically for the crossover. I'd suggested Rose or Flare, myself, but Liberty Girl and G-Girl are the ones they presented to me.

I'm afraid my artistic talent is significantly worse than yours. I'm really not capable of drawing at all. If I could I would have started a comic (or a billion half-finished comics) a long time ago. Unless I can find an artist, anyway.

Sorry it's been so long since I responded. I've been otherwise engaged. Anyways, I do have a planning forum for the crossover, so anybody that knows for sure they want to be a part of it, pease e-mail me or the like so I can send you the addess to go to.

And KnightRandom, it should be noted that some involved in the Crosover Wars were definitely worse artists than me, and yet still worked alongside those of gret talent and still worked: Indefensible Positions had a place in the crossover, interacting with Dasien and Evil Overlords United, primarily; and The KAMics was an even bigger contributor, interacting with CameoComic, Cortland, P.S.I., and Zortic, that I can think of. Not that I'm trying to convince you to draw it, but that the fact is that less than exemplary art did work in the Crossover Wars.

Well, it's in a hidden part of a forum--only participants in the crossover can see it. Otherwise, it's a forum for other things (the Crossover Wars, Halloween Cameo Capers, an RPG community, and others. The administrator of the forum set up the section for this crossover's planning for me.

Not sure if it did, I was interested but I still need to flesh out my universe, heroes, etc., for myself before I let others read them and crush my dream lol. I'm still unsure if I want to do OS chars or original, but I have ideas for both.